Life issues: Real Cool

Dealing with feelings of Jealousy and Envy
Jealousy is often referred to as "the green eyed monster." All of us have times when we feel a tinge of jealousy. Like Jess says, it often inspires us to better ourselves.

Once jealousy turns to envy, however, things can really turn nasty. Envy often results in a premeditated attempt to cut the other person down to size, as Ivy tries to do to her cousin, Donna in ‘Real Cool.’

In the episode, Ivy really envies Donna. Donna is academic while Ivy certainly is not. It looks like Donna will be judged top student and so win the title ‘Queen of the Prom.’ Ivy is determined to topple Donna from her pedestal while promoting her own interests at the same time.

Ivy manages to coerce her sister, Julia, into thinking that Donna’s success is the result of foul play. Feeling justified in some way and jealous of Donna herself, Julia helps Ivy in a campaign of blatant cheating.

As time goes on, Donna is overcome with conscience. She confesses her guilt to Jess, and before too long sees it as necessary to admit the shenanigans to the whole school as well. Only Jess and Donna save her from this embarrassment.

Jealousy stems from not being happy with the way you are, a theme that Jess touches on at the end of ‘Real Cool.’ A jealous person may feel that life is unfair and not making them happy. They may also feel that the secret to happiness lies in what the other person has.

Those people who accept themselves, are less likely to want what they have not got. It is a mistake to always compare yourself to others.

Remember when you were a child. Did you ever want that toy that your friend had? Did you feel jealous? It seems so trivial now but it is unlikely that the toy in question would have made a lot of difference to your overall happiness.

Admitting your jealousy to yourself is usually hard to do. It is so easy to say that you just don’t like the person without digging deeper and realising that there are other contributing factors. After admitting it to yourself, you may find that your relationship with the person improves dramatically.

If you regularly feel jealous of someone, going through some of these questions may help.

• What am I jealous of?
• What feelings do I have about myself that make me jealous of what that person has?
• What are my greatest strengths?

9 times out of 10, you will have strengths that the person you are jealous of does not have.

If Ivy had done this maybe she would have realised that the reason she wanted to be top student was because she craved popularity and felt insecure with her own academic abilities. Perhaps Ivy would have realised that she had strengths of her own, and felt less of a need to compare herself with Donna all of the time.

Be yourself, affirm yourself and jealousy will disappear.